Gonna Catch Hell
by SG-girl
Summary: He knows this girl is going to be dangerous and treacherous and destructive. Sequel to 'Under the Darkening Sky.'


**Gonna Catch Hell**

June 2012

Everything changes when the patrol brings her into camp, half-dead, dark hair matted with dirt and blood, limp on a clumsily manufactured stretcher.

Standing on the fringes of the frantic activity in the surgical suite, Myles Matheson knows. He knows this girl is going to be dangerous and treacherous and destructive. Sure enough, the second she opens those big gray eyes in the recovery tent that tickle of impending doom nagging at the back of Myles's head intensifies.

Bass's typical recruiting speech manages to sound forty times more grandiose this time around, delivered to a Marine, preschool teacher, and an insurance investigator instead of the crowds of hundreds who have been graced with it before.

The teacher turns them down, the insurance guy signs up without hesitation and the Marine meets Bass's gaze with a connection so intense it's a physical presence in the room.

Myles looks away as they shake hands.

December 2012

The first assassination attempt happens less than eight months after the Blackout.

The Monroe Militia is steadily growing in strength and troops. The survival plan that Miles and Bass came up after the world went dark has been taken and transformed into a barely functioning system, dozens of tiny factions at war with everyone for resources and traction and power. It's a free for all and about fourteen different clichés all wrapped up in panic and desperation. The Monroe militia's reputation means that they have a target on their collective backs.

The Gallagher Militia sends a former Special Forces soldier with a knife for an up close and personal meeting with that target.

Myles winds up with fourteen stitches in his chest, Bass is unscathed but not for lack of trying, and for the second time since he's known her, the Marine almost dies in front of him.

There is no proportionate response.

They wipe the Gallagher Militia off the face of the planet and the expression on Bass's face every time he looks at the Marine is terrifying.

February 2013

"You don't like me." The Marine lacks any kind of tact, just drops onto the bench across from him in the mess hall, no tray, no pretense that this is anything but a confrontation.

"Finally figure that out?" Myles stabs his fork into his rice and steeples his fingers under his chin, meeting her gaze. "Took you long enough, Snow White,"

One hand twitches towards her hair, movement arresting halfway as if she realizes the action can be perceived as a weakness and drops it onto the table, palm down. Her nails are chewed to the quick and Myles realizes two seconds later, takes a good long look, that she's just a kid, not even twenty years old yet. He hates her a little more because of that, because the naiveté isn't feigned and she's not playing a game, and Bass… well, Bass is a fool.

"Is this going to get in the way of field operations, sir?" she asks and Christ, she's fucking serious. They're just going to circle like boxers in the ring, Bass as the ineffectual referee.

They're going to be professional.

"Have you seen the way he looks at you?" Myles says and the way her gaze flicks to the side for a split second is plenty of answer. She remains silent, delicate face blank. Myles nods, picks up his fork again.

"See you at the briefing, Corporal." He pretends like the twitch of her lips isn't a smile, pretends like he doesn't watch her walk away out of the corner of his eye, pretends like he doesn't feel any kind of guilt when Bass comes in five minutes later and sits down across from him in the same spot.

June 2013

Bass says the word 'traitor' for the first time on a Wednesday.

Myles blinks at him, words frozen on the tip of his tongue, unsure when the shift from the United States of America to the United States of Monroe occurred and how he'd missed that.

The Marine sits across the table from them, silently observing, her eyes on Myles just as much as Bass. She has a sniper's stare: focused, intense, predatory. Myles doesn't even know what she's doing there.

"Traitor?" Myles asks, speech function restored. "Since when are we a sovereign nation? And who the fuck decides what treason is?" Bass stares flatly. The Marine shifts in her chair, looking between the two of them like it's a singles tennis match. Discomfort and tension fill the room.

"Sir?" Bass's gaze remains fixed on Myles, but he tilts his head towards the Marine.

"We need to discuss the situation with the Coffer Militia." It's a blatant out. Myles waits for Bass to take it, to say something less inflammatory, something about holding the line, waiting out the trouble.

He doesn't.

November 2013

The first thing Myles sees when he wakes up in the hospital tent is the Marine, asleep in the chair by the bed, Bass's coat tucked under her chin. The fever is gone, broken sometime during the night and all he's left with is a dry mouth and noodles for limbs.

The nurse comes in not twenty minutes later, the Marine wakes up and stays for the diagnosis and exam, then disappears around the same time that Bass shows up, the two switching watch shifts with an easy glide.

The coat is left folded on the chair by the bed and both men talk around the subject until Myles is tired again.

The next time he sees the Marine, the door has been left open for air to circulate and she's in the hallway, her back to him, speaking with Bass in low hushed tones.

Bass's face softens just the littlest bit when he puts the back of his hand to her forehead, the true and tried method of testing for illness.

Myles looks away as her head tilts into the touch.

June 2014

Two years after the Blackout, it seems to finally sink in, realization like a rock.

The power is not coming back on.

Desperation, terror, and overwhelming despondency hit the already splintered nation like a tidal wave. There's a sudden explosion of skirmishes with the nearby militias, each one vying for space and manpower. In the end it's almost ridiculous how easily they fold into the Monroe militia, one loss after another, swelling the ranks, expanding the propaganda of their own little militant utopia.

Two years after the Blackout, the Marine takes an arrow for Myles.

"Jesus fuck," she yells as he unceremoniously yanks it out of her thigh, one hand fisted in his jacket, her eyes wet with tears of pain. Holding her from behind, Bass is stoic, but Myles can see the twitch of his left eye, the tension in his jaw and not because hellfire is raining down around them.

"Ok, ok, ok," the Marine says, clumsily patting the arm that Bass has around her waist. "I'm gonna-" she doesn't even finish the sentence, just slumps over, unconscious.

"Find their leader," Bass orders the militiaman hovering at his elbow. "Take him out and they'll stop fighting."

The double-edged words saw away at the edges of Myles' conscience as he bandages up the Marine.

February 2016

Valentine's Day isn't a thing. Not anymore.

After the Blackout, sentimentality was the first thing to go and it doesn't feel like anyone's gotten it back yet.

One of the cook's sons—the four year old with his gap-toothed smile and curly red hair—gives the Marine a flower during breakfast and she wears it tucked into her braid for the rest of the day, the tiny blue blossom bright against her dark hair.

Everyone teases her—lighthearted and fun—and she takes it with a Mona Lisa smile, a smile that's tense and brittle around the edges.

Myles watches from the command tent, feels Bass moving behind him, readying maps and charts for their latest offensive.

"Something worth looking at?" his best friend's gaze bores into his back. Myles turns away from the tent flap, back to the business of war.

"Yes," he says and leaves it at that.

October 2016

The Monroe Republic is real. It's not just an idea that Myles and Bass toyed with after their world fell into darkness, not a game played with two childhood friend, it's a cold-blooded, harsh reality… and Bass has appointed himself leader.

They fight about it, shouting matches that carry through their tent walls, shoving matches that end in bloodied noses and angry words.

The Marine is not present for the dissolution of their friendship, but Myles is ever aware of her existence, reads it in the set of Bass's shoulders, the intensity of his gaze when a field patrol returns with injuries or deaths.

Irrationally, Myles blames her, hates her, heaps every bit of anger and loathing he's felt since the Blackout on her slim shoulders.

Rationally… rationally, he figures he's half in love with her himself, so he doesn't really have a leg to stand on.

January 2017

Up close, the Marine is delicate, a fey-like quality that softens the curve of her cheek, the slight upturn of her nose. Up close, her eyes are silver instead of gray, there's a faint smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Up close, he can see it. He can see why Bass took one long look at this woman and destroyed the world.

It's not an assassination. It's retribution and justice and biblical hellfire on the edge of a freshly honed blade.

It's not an assassination. It's a chance to right a wrong, to change history, redemption.

It's not an assassination because the target isn't dead.

It's not an assassination because the target is staring at him with disbelieving icy blue eyes as the woman they both love slumps to the ground between them, halfway to dead on a blade that wasn't meant for her.

It's not an assassination.

It's a love story.


End file.
